Business blog

Solar Panel

As of August 2014, Australia leads the world in the percentage of homes having solar power systems fitted. There are now more than 1,000,000 Australian homes that have invested in solar panels technology and the impact has had some surprising outcomes. It has been reported that electricity costs for all Australian power consumers have decreased as a result of the surge in renewable energy investment has created a dilemma for the traditional coal and gas based electricity generators.

Australian Solar Industry Background.

The Australian government has offered attractive incentives since 2008 for home owners to have solar panels systems installed and this lead to an unexpectedly large acceptance of these incentives. As Australians increasingly generate their own electricity from solar and small scale wind generation, electricity producers are seeing demand for grid supplied electricity decreasing. This has resulted in the calls from the energy industry for the scrapping of the Renewable Energy Target (R.E.T.) which, some claim, has resulted in an imbalance in the cost of renewable energy versus traditional carbon generated electricity production, see http://meninaphyna.com/ for discussion of the repercussions of the R.E.T. on the solar industry in Australia. Should the R.E.T. be scrapped there are concerns that the solar industry in Australia could collapse and the 15,000 jobs within the industry could be at risk.

Future For Solar Power In Australia

There are currently 3 Giga Watts of solar electricity produced in Australia from ‘small scale’ solar systems and 25 Giga Watts produced from large scale solar plants. This represents 14 percent of all electrical generation in Australia. It is expected that by the year 202 this will increase to at least 20 percent. The future for the Australian renewable energy industry seems strong.